Bradda Head Lithium (LSE:BHL) — 2021 AGM

0:01 Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the BRADDA HEAD LIMITED twenty twenty one AGM Proceedings. The company may not be in a position to answer every question it receives during this meeting. However, the company will review all questions submitted today and publish responses where it's appropriate to do so. These will be available via your investor meet company dashboard, and we will

0:32 notify you when they are ready for your review. I'd also like to remind you that this presentation is being recorded. I'd now like to hand over to Denham Eak, CFO and Company Secretary of BRADDA HEAD LITHIUM. Good afternoon, sir. Thank you very much indeed. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Annual General Meeting of your company. As you note, it is now 03:00. I'm Denimique, Director of the company, and I will act as Chairman the of of Board of and is and therefore, the required quorum is present.

1:20 I therefore declare this Annual General Meeting open. Due to the current COVID-nineteen pandemic and associated Isle of Man government recommendations on social distancing and the avoidance of public gatherings, this Annual General Meeting is being conducted as a closed meeting. Accordingly, shareholders have been requested not to attend the meeting in person and instead all shareholders have been asked to vote by proxy. However, the Board would like to welcome those shareholders listening in to this Annual General Meeting via the electronic platform link. We trust that each of you are keeping safe and well throughout these uncertain times. Shareholders were afforded the opportunity to ask questions prior to the meeting, and the Board has dealt with directly with those shareholders.

2:15 The Board will not be tabling any further questions at the meeting. However, having said that, I do understand that questions for those attending on the link will be taken. Since there are no shareholders attending this meeting in person, say for directors, the votes on each resolution today will be conducted on the basis of a poll rather than a share of hands. All proxy votes having been received by 03:00 on the September 21 and recorded as valid by the registrar will be counted in this poll. For the purposes of information, let me tell you that all six resolutions tabled all have been voted in favor and the total votes in favor are 69,131,736.

3:17 Prior to putting the resolutions to the meeting, I would like to advise the meeting of the proxies received by the company are as I've just told. In my capacity as Chairman of the meeting, I'm electing to put the resolutions to a poll in accordance with Article eight of the company's Article of Association. I'm casting all votes for which I'm appointed proxy in accordance with the proxy instructions that have been duly received and validated in respect of each resolution. The counting and verification of the votes will just take a few seconds, but I shall announce the results as soon as possible.

4:08 Right. I can now confirm the vote. I'm pleased to advise the company's representative has now completed the poll, and I've now will now proceed to announce the results of the poll, which are as follows. Resolution one, to receive and adopt the company's annual accounts, 100% in favor Resolution two, the appointment of auditors, 100% in favor. Resolution three, the reappointment of a director, that's 100% in favor, and that is the same for resolution four. Resolution five, the directors' authority to allot shares, 100% in favor.

5:01 And Resolution six, the disapplication of preemption rights, again, 100% in favor. On that basis, I hereby declare that the resolutions number one to five inclusive are carried as ordinary resolutions and the resolution number six is carried as a special resolution by the required majority. There being no further business, that concludes the formal business of the meeting. I would now like to hand you over to Charles Fitzroy, our Chief Executive Officer, who will make a brief presentation on behalf of the company and answer questions. On behalf of my colleagues and myself, I would like to thank you for participating in the formal part of this meeting.

5:55 Now over to you, Charlie. Thank you, Denham. Thank you very much. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Charlie Fitzroy. I'm the CEO of BRADDA HEAD, and I've got a presentation which is an update on what's happened since listing and where we plan to go for the next six months or so of our operational plans. First thing I'd like to highlight is we obviously had very successful IPO back in July where we raised £6,200,000. We went out to raise 4. In fact, we raised 6 was fantastic. It shows the market in London was the right place to do it and the right time to list BRADDA. Since listing, we have changed BRADDA's name from BRADDA HEAD to BRADDA HEAD LITHIUM to more reflect the company's values and the focus. And, also, since listing, we now have work underway at all three projects, which are our brine assets in Nevada, sedimentary assets in Arizona, and our pegmatite assets in Arizona. So that's what really makes BRADDA, you know, different from a lot of the lithium guys out there is we have all three asset classes within our portfolio, and we're doing work to push them along and to unlock the value within the company.

7:05 This slide is really shows what we've done since listing and also the share price. You know? The shares are up, you know, about 45% since we've listed, which is a fantastic result for us. They're only, you know, three two months since we've listed. It's nothing at all. We're very happy with the response to the shares. And even over August, we had some good trading. Since listing, we have increased our sedimentary claims by a 105% because of our geologist belief in the areas we have. We've commenced drilling in our Burrow Creek East asset, and our first assets have come back showing really potential, really exciting results, an increasing grade in one of them and confirmation of lithium mineralization, which I'll go onto later. Got a geophysical program shorting starting shortly.

7:52 The guys are on the ground tomorrow doing some reconnaissance work, and they will start with putting the lines out on Monday. We received drilling at our Wikiup project, which is very exciting, and we're also permitting for the remainder of the project with the permits. And with our new claims, Byro Creek West, North, and Byro Creek East Extension, we are now pushing forward permitting. And those claims will link up to Byro Creek East to create a large resource, and we can draw them out. Shortly, we're going to be announcing that we've lined up a drilling contractor to start at Wikiup, which is due to start next month. And then in our brine assets also, we are doing some work at our Wilson project to drill there to test the brine geochemistry in the identified basin. And then at Spencer, we are gonna do some geophysics and also do some drilling to do some shadow sampling of the clay asset there too because there's potential for a clay and brine resource at Spencer. So very exciting.

8:47 And I didn't mention just now, we also our geophysical program, which is starting at Wikiup and Bow Creek, is also starting at San Domingo to test our thesis on our pegmatite having a deep surface structure, but I'll go through that in a little bit. So, yeah, BRADDA, we identified that, you know, we want to get our end goal is to develop our assets into low production costs, low carbon, battery quality, lithium end product producing assets. Where we are now, we've identified what we need, and we know what we need to do to get there. We need to increase our resources at our sedimentary assets and develop our processing capabilities at our sedimentary assets and also increase knowledge of our pegmatite assets and brine assets. And we are doing that now. We've identified the areas of of attack, and we are accelerating the drilling in our sedimentary assets with Burrow Creek, and we're starting Wikiup very shortly. We're prioritizing our assets from geophysical programs, which will enable us to tar do targeted drilling where we see fit. And we're adding team members, especially ones who focus on areas which we really believe as a company we we are is a is a main priority for us.

9:53 ESG is a key one. We've appointed Adam Hawkins, who I'll talk about later, and also also appointed two technical consultants, Don Haynes and who I'll talk about later. And we are soon going to be announcing that metallurgical processing test work will be shortly underway from our Brier Creek East drill call with an industry leader. And, again, we're dealing some targeted geophysics at all our sedimentary claims and our pegmatite claims to make sure that we are not doing any unnecessary drilling and conserving as much cash as possible. So all our cash goes in the ground, and the resources come from that. So that's where BRADDA is on its strategy side of things. You know, the management board are well known. We've got a very strong team who really understand how to develop exploration assets and grow the company and demonstrate the value. I'm not gonna focus too much on this because everyone knows the company. Everyone everyone knows the background of who's involved, but I will focus on the new guys we have added to the team, which are Adam Hawkins, Don Haynes, and Utendera.

10:57 All these guys are very experienced in their fields, and it's part of the sort of the key thing about what we're doing as a company. ESG is, you know, first and foremost, something which we believe about as a company, and it's core to building out our strategy. Adam is really helping with that. Got a slide in a second, which Adam has helped to put together to help outlay how we're going to approach ESG for our assets and engaging with local communities and local tribes. Don and Yutendra are both very experienced consultants. Is very experienced in lithium processing. He's helping us there, and he's been advising on the program with the industry leading testing facility, which we'll be announcing shortly. And Don is advising on all things from processing to exploration. So we've got a very strong team already helping us. And Don already as as we speak, he is on the boards of several other lithium companies at similar stage to us advising them. So he he really understands what he's doing. He's at the forefront of exploration for lithium.

11:58 As I mentioned before, Adam's helped us put together our ESG framework, and this slide outlays how we think about things. We are making sure that we are doing everything as efficiently and environmentally as possible. We're engaging with the local communities and the local tribes, and we're making sure that everything is done in a way which is laid out in our framework. And this is very exciting that we can work with Adam to develop this as a company going forwards.

12:27 BRADDA itself is focused on lithium in The US. We are trying to develop our assets in a low carbon way as possible because The US has a demand sorry, a supply shortfall. There's a huge amount of demand coming from The US, and there's not much supply out there. There's only one current operating asset in The US, which is Albemarle Silver Peak operation, which had been operating since the late sixties. And that is where BRADDA is positioned to fill this gap. And this this slide shows an overview of the current supply chain and the fact that The US does not have a real battery supply chain. Most lithium is mined in South America or Australia, and that adds carbon intensity to that end product. And that's where BRADDA comes in, and our assets are in Arizona, Nevada near the end users.

13:17 They're near the gigafactories. They're near the places where we want to be the brute supply to. And the fact that our assets are not in Australia. Because you look on the chart on the right hand side with the carbon intensity. The orange circles show where world's pegmatite assets sit on the carbon intensity graph. They are much higher than they should be because of where they're located and the process they have to get through to get to the end user. We've got a Pegmatot asset in Arizona, which could be sent to Texas or to Nevada to be processed. It's a much shorter journey. And then our brine assets, again, are not in South America. They're in Nevada. And our clay assets are in Arizona. So we are developing assets which are going to have a low carbon footprint for The US market, and that's what we're very excited about.

14:05 A comparable company, which we believe we are, we can compare our our sedimentary assets to is American Lithium. You'll see from this share price chart here, American Lithium announced their maiden resource last year, and they've drilled about 40% of their claims out of 30 kilometers squared. To put that into perspective, at our sedimentary claims, we've only drilled 2% of 47 kilometers squared. So we've got a huge amount of resource proving up to go. Our recurrent grade compares favorably with American lithium, and and we believe this is the trajectory we, as a company, want to follow, which is why we're doing what we're doing at our projects of doing the geophysics and the targeted drilling. It's very exciting that we hope we can follow such a trajectory as American Lithium.

14:55 This is where we are have been focusing majority of our exploration work since IPO from the drilling point of view. These are our sedimentary claims. As you can see in red, the claims we've added since listing. And we obviously, we have a drill program underway at Burrow Creek East, but we are shortly gonna be having it underway at Wikia. We've got a huge extensive land package over this sedimentary claim block. It's a very supportive mining jurisdiction. You know, Baghdad's Freeport Copper Mine is just there to the east. You can see it in the in the right hand side here.

15:34 We have an inferred resource already, and importantly is that our clay at Burrow Creek East has been proven that it can be processed to a lithium grade battery chemical. And also up in near Wikiup, we have a neighbor of ours, Hawkstone, in this area here who also demonstrated they can process their ore to a lithium grade a battery grade lithium product. So we're very confident in the fact that our WikiUp project is gonna be very promising, and the drilling we're doing there will demonstrate the viability of the assets there. It's very exciting. I'm moving on to just the next slide, which is about WikiUp. So WikiUp, we've added it's over 16 kilometers squared of new claims added to WikiUp in the Northwest up here and also the Southwest.

16:28 These are some of the areas we're doing our geophysics shortly. We've got permission to drill at our section 12, which is just down here. And then we are in in this in the we're permitting at the other sections here and here, and we believe we'll get those permits through shortly. And we're gonna start drilling there next month. Hawkstone's resource is just in here, as you can see, the level resource. And we are drilling in areas where we've had very good surface samples done, which we believe we're gonna find, you know, decent grades below the ground. And the fact that the geophysics program is very exciting because it will enable us to plan the future drill programs. And with all this drilling, we expect to resource early next year. So that is very exciting for WikiUp. Barrow Creek is again, it's we are drilling there now, but this is a really, really exciting place from a geological point of view and from the end product. As you can see, we are drilling just down here at Barrow Creek East.

17:29 We've added these claims, Burrow Creek West and Burrow Creek North. We are in the we are in the process of permitting here at Burrow Creek West, and, also, we are permitting Burrow Creek East and Burrow Creek North. Why is that important? Well, these always claims link up. And if you I'm just gonna jump to the next slide quickly. If you look at this zoomed in at Burrow Creek East and this block model. So this block model here on the right hand side is is this section here in Borrower Creek Borrower Creek East. As you can see, the upper clay zone thickens going forward. So upper clay thickens that way and that way.

18:09 Going into our Borrower Creek East extension and our Borrower Creek North and Borrower Creek West. So this is very exciting for us because the up upper clay zone is the higher grade zone. And the drilling program we've been doing has identified the presence of the low zone, which we didn't know was there at certain locations, and in some areas has increased has identified there's potential for an increase in grade in the upper zone. So we are

18:33 looking forward to finishing off the program. The program now will be finished mid October. We had a slight weather delay with the drilling, and it's very extreme weather in Arizona over the summer. But recovery has been fantastic. Upwards of 94%. And once we get our final drill finished, the assays are back within four weeks of that last hole. So we're gonna have a resource upgrade in q four this year. Very exciting. And the fact that what we're doing is really strengthening our geological model is exciting for us at Borough Creek East. And I'll just go back to show you what this means for the rest of the deposits. As you can see, you know, we have this huge area here and here, which is where the thickening is happening. So the thickening of the upper clay unit is going that way.

19:19 So all these all these claims link up, and that's what that's why we're doing what we're doing at Burrow Creek West North And East Extension so we can link up this resource and have a a large resource over the area with this thicker clay unit. And the geophysics, which we're doing shortly, will help us to identify areas as thick as clay so we can do targeted drilling. So that is the reason why we're doing that at Burrow Creek. And then San Domingo. San Domingo is I know I've used the word exciting, but it is very exciting. It is our pegmatites where we have over a nine kilometer strike over this way here. And it that that's that's important because our comparable assets, and we believe, are Kathleen Valley and Boothill in Australia, which their strike is between 1.2 kilometers to 1.7 kilometers. So we've got a much larger strike than our comparable assets. And as you can see from this map, all these pegmatites are mapped. They've got names.

20:11 This is important because if you look at the comparables cross sections the slide's taking a bit of time to load. Apologies.

20:31 Charlie, we're currently on slide 17 on the Okay. I I can't see it, but Okay. I I can talk about it. I remember it. So if you look at the the two comparable maps here, you can see the very thin dikes surface, and then you've got the deeper feeder structure system at depth. On the previous slide, when I highlighted those small pender pegmatites that have been mapped, that's what we believe we have. We have identified those small outcropping dikes, and we'll do some geophysics shortly to be able to demonstrate that we have this deeper feeder system at

21:02 depth, which will be phenomenal for the company because that'll enable us to prove show that there's a potential for a open cut mining operation of pegmatites in Arizona there, which would be huge because pegmatite mining is 60% of the world's mining. It's very understood, and the market will appoint the value to us that that that would deserve because pegmatite miners get a high valuation compared to clearly, that's very exciting, and we're getting going there very shortly. I'm just gonna pop back to the previous slide. Yeah. So that's what we're doing with our geophysics there. Again, very exciting. I'm just gonna go to 18. Mine's not loading. So it's Slide 18. Let me just Yeah.

21:48 Okay, Charlie. We we are on currently on Slide 18, so that's great. Okay. Let me give me two seconds. Let me just get up my backup.

22:05 Apologies for this. No problem, John. Just just let me know when you wanna change slides, and I will change it to the following slide so you can crack on with your with your hook version. Okay. Turn slides. Yeah. So, also, alongside what we're doing at our pigment sites and our sedimentary assets, we are working at our brine assets. As you can see from this slide with the two photos in the background, which we we had on a recent field trip out there into The States, myself and Ian, and I was talking to the chairman. At Spencer, we are doing some geophysics to identify the basin there and also doing some drilling there to to test the clays because we have some very good clay samples at surface up to 550 PPM lithium. And then at Wilson, as you can see in the bottom of the screen, there are two basins there, which is the same same structure, but it's what we did from our 2016 MT survey. So identified the basin. We've got permit. It's where we we are permitting to to drill there.

23:07 We've got permission to we are permitting to drill two holes into the basin at Wilson to identify the brine geochemistry. And then there is also a deeper structure there. And if we identify that the basins are positive at Wilson, we will permit to drill to the deeper structure. So it's a lot to look at Wilson and at Spencer. Has that moved to 19? Yep. That's correct. Fantastic. Thank you. So on the on the expiration timeline, as you can see here, we've got a we've got a lot going on. We've got our new claims on this now, Barrow Creek North, Barrow Creek East sorry, Barrow Creek West extension added to it.

23:56 We're in the we're in the process of permitting at Barrow Creek West, Barrow Creek North, and Barrow Creek East extension, which will add to our resource potential there. We're starting geophysics shortly. We're gonna be drilling Wiki up next month. San Domingo, we are in the process of signing signing geophysics there shortly, which will enable us to to find a targeted drill program. And then Wilson and Spencer, we're in the status of permitting at Wilson and we're gonna be doing geophysics expense early next year, and Wilson will be doing some drilling early next year. So there's a lot going on at all our assets, and it's a very exciting time for the company. And we're looking forward to getting the results back from our Borrow Creek East program and also from Wikiup when we start drilling there. With the company at the moment, we have $7,000,000 in cash. And since IPO, we've had some really good shareholders come on board. Raj Chawas bought at three three and a half percent, and the RBC Trust come on for 5%.

24:57 So this has happened post IPO. So you can see the interest we've had in the market for the story because we are very unique. You know, we have a low geological risk compared to a lot of companies. We have all all three asset types, brines, pegmatites, and sedimentary. We're in Arizona, Nevada, which are lowest risks and places in the world as of the recent Fraser index, and we're located near the end users and developing low carbon footprint lithium with management who are hugely involved and have skin in the game. And the geological upside from the pegmatites and the brines is is massive. So, yeah, it's a very great time to be part of the company. And I think I think that's everything for me. I know it's a bit of a bit of a whirlwind, but, you know, it's we've done a lot since IPO, and there's lots more planned. And that's where we we find ourselves as a company positioned to demonstrate the value that BRADDA has, and we're trying to unlock it.

25:53 Charlie, thank you very much indeed for your presentation and for updating investors this afternoon. Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions using the Q and A tab situated on the right hand corner of your screen. Just please simply type in your question and press send. But in the meantime, I'd like to remind you that a copy of the slides along with the recording of the presentation and the published Q and A can be made available to you via your Investor Meet company dashboard. I'd also like to remind you that following this presentation, the company will be will redirect you in order that you can provide feedback in order the company can better understand your views and expectations. Charlie, I wondered if I could ask you to open up the Q and A tab on the right hand side of your screen. We had a pre submitted question, and we've also had a number of questions that have come in from attendees on today's call. Perhaps I could just ask you to read the questions out and give a response where it's appropriate to do so.

26:47 Yes. So I I see a few questions here. The one question asking about when our next news flow item will be released. I can't I can't let you know when it when it will be released, but we have a lot coming up, a lot of exciting news flow plan for the company from all our assets. So, yeah, please stay tuned, and we'll be updating when we can. There's another question asking about the comparables between us and American Lithium. I think at the moment as we speak, American Lithium is about 10 times the value of BRADDA. As I've demonstrated earlier, American Lithium has drilled about 40% of its 30 square kilometers of claims, and we only drilled 2% of our 47 square kilometers of our sedimentary claims. And we also have our pegmatites and brines as well. So, yeah, there's there's massive room for BRADDA to increase in value.

27:39 Asking someone's asking about after our product is mined, where is it gonna be processed before going to end user? The US market is expanding its battery manufacturing capabilities. Megafactories are popping up all over the place. I know Tesla are planning to do a spodumene conversion facility in Texas that could be an end place for our for our pegmatite product if we if we find a good good size of mine there. Yeah. It's it's there's a lot of areas we could be processed through, but that is something which we are developing as we speak. And that's why we brought on our consultants to help us to develop an efficient and low carbon, low cost processes to be able to produce that end product, which is the the end goal for BRADDA.

28:29 I think that's everything I can see currently on the q and a. Charlie, I think I think you have been very kind. I think you've addressed pretty much all the questions that have come through. Of course, if any do come through in the meantime or when we're wrapping up, I'll make those available to you post this meeting. Charlie, I I think, obviously, with with that in mind, and I know that investor feedback is important, we'll shortly redirect investors and attendees on today's call to give you their thoughts and expectations and provide you with their feedback. But perhaps before doing so, Charles, I could just ask you for a few closing comments just to wrap up with. Yes. No. Thank you. Well, you know, BRADDA's had a phenomenal year so far. We went out to raise 4,000,000, and we raised over 6. We've increased our claims dramatically. Now we're the largest landholder on the Wikiup, Bire Creek Lithium District.

29:18 We've got all three asset types, and we're we're poised to be part of the, you know, The US domestic lithium supply chain, and we're approaching it from a very sustainable and positive ESG standpoint from where we're engaging with the local communities from the ground up. I think this is a very exciting time for BRADDA where we are you know, we've drilled such a small proportion of our claims. We've got a lot of to prove up and a lot of values to grow for the company. So it's a very good time to be part of this company moving forward into into 2022. Charles and to also Denham, thank you very, very much indeed for your time today and for updating investors. Could I please ask the attendees not to close this session as we'll now automatically redirect you for the opportunity to provide feedback in order that management team can better understand your views and expectations?

30:04 This will only take a few moments to complete, and I'm sure will be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of BRADDA HEAD LITHIUM LIMITED, we'd like to thank you very much for attending today's meeting. That now concludes today's session. Good afternoon to you all.